41
The Salamander was black as pitch and twice as large as Ignatius. It even had stubs of wings on its back, where Ignatius’s shoulder bones were. But despite these anomalies, it was indisputably a Salamander, from the spiked tip of its tail to the toothless beak on the end of its snout.
Ignatius seemed to think so too, for he chirred quietly as he watched the demon preen itself on Khan’s shoulder. Fletcher quelled him with a thought and watched as the shaman retinue marched behind, following the albino orc over the bridge. One carried a sack of yellow petals from the antechamber.
None had their demons with them, nor did they have summoning leathers but, even from the rafters above, Fletcher could see that all of them had pentacles and other symbols tattooed on their hands, just as he did. Even the new adepts had them, though several held their hands gingerly, as if they had only recently been marked.
Up close, Fletcher could see that these adepts were smaller than the others, with underdeveloped tusks jutting from their lower lips. They wore little more than grass skirts, but their bodies had been dusted with white powder, perhaps to emulate the albino’s skin.
A shout from Khan made Fletcher jump. He gave orders in guttural barks, pointing at the five corners of the pentacle. The shamans that had accompanied him took their places there, while the adepts kneeled behind, watching intently.
More orcish speech followed, and in unison the shamans began to etch complex symbols that intersected in the air above the star. It was mesmerising to watch. For some reason, Fletcher had always imagined orc shamans to be the most rudimentary of summoners, barely capable of controlling anything more than a low-level imp.
He had to remind himself that orcs had been summoning long before humans, and though he daren’t suggest it to Sylva, possibly before the elves had too.
Khan bellowed another order when the etching stopped. A strange ring of double helix hung in the air above the pentacle, and the shamans’ hands glowed blue as they pumped mana into the symbol. Soon, the ring became a disk of spinning blue light, moving faster than Fletcher could follow.
The orc shamans began to wail and chant, raising their voices against the roar of the spell. As their voices reached a crescendo, Khan knelt on the floor and pressed a small knob on the platform. It sank into the stone and a rumble echoed throughout the pyramid. The clank and screech of machinery echoed from the ceiling just above Fletcher’s head. For a moment Khan stared up at the noise and Fletcher ducked behind the beam, his heart fluttering in his chest like a caged bird.
It was only when he heard the slosh of liquid in the pipe beside him that curiosity compelled him to peek again. What he saw was sickening.
Blood gushed from the pipe and into the hole at the centre of the pentacle, pulsing like a severed artery. As the fluid passed through the spell it frothed and sizzled, the consistency becoming viscous, the colour verging on black. Far below, the liquid clotted and congealed over the gremlin eggs, oozing out of holes at the base of the pillar and into the trench. Then, the eggs began to throb, palpitating in the water as they grew in size, spilling out of the trench and filling the pit right to the edges.
A whispered curse from the darkness beside him told him he was not the only one who had seen it. Soon the blood from the pipe had reduced to no more than a trickle. The spell flickered and faded, the shamans collapsing to the ground with exhaustion. Fletcher’s palms prickled with sweat as he contemplated the gruesome ritual. The blood from the blue orcs had a purpose after all.
Khan grunted with approval, reaching into a pouch at his waist and slipping a hunk of meat into his Salamander’s mouth. It gobbled it up greedily, gulping it down with two birdlike jerks of its head.
The albino orc snarled another order and the adepts scrambled to queue up behind him, stringing themselves out across the bridge. Each took a bunch of the yellow petals from the sack, and even Khan snatched a fistful. Together, they stuffed them into their mouths, chewing and swallowing with audible gulps. The younger orcs grimaced at the taste, one even dry heaving before forcing it down with a swig of water from a gourd at his hip.
Fletcher wondered whether it was some sort of drug or poison, to numb their bodies or dull their senses. They certainly seemed to sway on their feet, though whether it was out of fear or the effect of stimulants, he couldn’t be sure.
After a moment’s pause, Khan spoke again, his rough speech bringing the shamans to their knees. They bowed their heads in deference, avoiding Khan’s eyes. Each dipped their fingers in the pentacle’s blood, one hand in the key on their point of the star, another in the star itself.
‘The orc keys!’ Sylva whispered, just loud enough for Fletcher to hear.
Fletcher’s heart leaped, and he had to cover his mouth to stop himself from gasping. The coordinates to the orcs’ part of the ether were below – their best-kept secret revealed for all to see. He hadn’t noticed until the carvings had filled with blood.
Fletcher waved his hand frantically at Lysander, until he caught the Griffin’s attention. He motioned below, miming the symbols, and the Griffin leaned out from his perch, risking all to get the best view of the scene below.
Fletcher knew that all over Hominum, people would be carefully copying them down. Even if they failed in their mission, it would not have been in vain. They had achieved something that Hominum had long given up on.
With the coordinates to the orc’s part of the ether, Hominum’s summoners would be able access an entirely different ecosystem, with new demons to capture. It would change the war irrevocably in their favour, and it was Fletcher’s team that had made it happen.
The symbols in question began to glow blue, as did the pentacle, the blood within them sizzling and popping as the mana flowed into it. It was not long before a glowing sphere expanded in the air, a spinning portal to the ether. The ball was enormous, far larger than any Fletcher had seen before. As he watched it rotate, a dull throb filled the room, ebbing and rising with every revolution of the orb.
Spitting yellow pulp from his mouth and holding his torch aloft, Khan strode forward, until he stood but an inch away from the portal. He scowled at the adepts, his red eyes flicking from one to the next. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, he disappeared into the portal.
Fletcher heard Sylva gasp as, one by one, the adept orcs followed, vanishing into another plane of existence. The remaining shamans chanted in low voices as they pushed a constant stream of threaded blue light into the bloody channels of the pentacle.
In the darkness above, Fletcher watched incredulously as the minutes ticked by. They had been taught that the ether’s air was poisonous, causing paralysis and often death. Summoners had to enter it dressed in an airtight suit – Captain Lovett’s visor had barely cracked when she had gone in almost two years ago, yet the poison had left her paralysed.
The seconds ticked by excruciatingly slowly; the only change in the scene below was the thin sheen of sweat gradually forming on the shamans’ backs. The team above were forced to hide in silence, barely allowing themselves to breathe.
Fletcher watched as Sylva stifled a sneeze, her eyes watering as she clamped her fingers down on her nostrils. His heart somersaulted as she swallowed it down, her shoulders heaving at the effort.
Almost a full half-hour had passed when the white orc stepped out of the portal, his black Salamander riding high on his shoulders. The adepts emerged but a moment later, many tumbling out as if in a great hurry. The white orc laughed aloud as they scrambled behind their shaman masters.
As soon as the last adept was free, the shamans allowed the portal to close, casting the room in darkness. The only source of light came from Khan’s torch, which had survived the journey into the ether.
With one last barked order, Khan led the other orcs across the pentacle and through to the opposite passageway. Exhausted, the shamans stumbled after him, panting hoarsely with exertion.
Even when the room was pitch black, Fletcher and the others remained silent, for they could not be sure whether the orcs would return. It was only when a cheer from the crowd outside filtered through the stone that they knew it was safe to move.
‘What the bloody hell was that?’ Othello growled, shuffling over to Fletcher and Sylva. ‘Orcs are immune to the ether’s poison?’
‘It looks like it,’ Sylva whispered, tossing a wyrdlight into the empty space beneath them. ‘But we have their keys now. It was our team that did it – a dwarf, an elf and a human.’
She beamed with pride, and to Fletcher it felt as if that smile lit up the room more than a wyrdlight ever could. Just for a moment, he allowed himself to bask in the joy of their achievement. The orc keys were guarded jealously, so much so that the objective of discovering them had not even formed a part of this mission. His team had exceeded expectations a thousandfold.
In the minutes that followed, Lysander flew them down one by one, until they stood on the platform for the first time.
‘Get a good look at each key, Lysander,’ Fletcher said, pointing at the blood-filled symbols on the floor.
He peered over the lip and dropped a wyrdlight to the bottom of the pit. The eggs were still there, each one now swollen to the size of a keg of beer. They throbbed and pulsed like living things, the gelatinous shells slippery with mucus.
Othello crouched and examined the pentacle. Within the carving, a crusty black residue remained, still steaming from the mana that had coursed through it. Wrinkling his nose, he pushed himself upright using a nearby protrusion in the rock.
There was a sloshing from above the pentacle and Othello looked up, only to receive a splatter of blood from the pipes.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Othello wailed, stepping aside and frantically wiping at his face with a sleeve.
‘Organic material for pentacles,’ Sylva said, crouching down and examining it as more blood trickled out of the pipes to pool within the lines of the pentacle. ‘Just like our summoning leathers and Fletcher’s palm. There must be a pipe coming from the bottom of the altar.’
‘You don’t say,’ Othello said sarcastically, splashing his cheeks with water from his hip-flask. Fletcher couldn’t help but chuckle at the miserable dwarf.
The room felt different now: they had discovered so much, yet it had left many unanswered questions.
‘So what was that, some induction ceremony for orc novices?’ Sylva said, pacing around the pentacle. ‘Their first taste of the ether, perhaps?’
‘Probably,’ Othello sighed. ‘Well, now we know how the goblin eggs are made.’
‘Yes, some horrific spell that makes the orc blood mix with the gremlin eggs,’ Fletcher grunted.
He used his toe to test the first step into the pit, dizzied as he looked at the spiral around the platform’s pillar.
‘Speaking of which … let’s go and have a look at what we’re dealing with.’
The step felt firm enough, so he continued until his head was level with the platform.
‘Shouldn’t we be looking for the others before going down there?’ Othello suggested, eyeing the stairway with trepidation.
‘If there’s an entrance to the goblin caves, this is it. The others’ll be along soon enough, their sponsors will have seen that the coast is clear from Lysander’s scrying crystal, and will guide them to us with their demons.’
Fletcher trudged on, running his fingers along the coarse stone as if it might give him some purchase against the long drop to the ground below. The walls seemed to press in, and he was reminded of the stairwell Didric had taken him up on their way to the courthouse. Dread pervaded his skin, prickling him with cold sweat. They were vulnerable on the stairs, with nowhere to hide if an enemy appeared below … or above.
Only the comfort of Ignatius’s warm skin against the back of his neck strengthened his resolve, even as he descended deeper into the belly of the beast.
The trench around the bottom of the stairs was filled with eggs, as well as a slick coating of the clotted blood. Fletcher had no choice but to wade through them, groaning with disgust. His breeches were coated with the stuff by the time he clambered out on to the soil of the other side.
Sylva and Othello had the good sense to leap from the stairs above, their feet barely splashing the bank of the moat-like trench. Lysander glided down without any trouble, and Fletcher realised he could easily have hitched a ride. This time it was Othello’s turn to chuckle as Fletcher wiped away the foul jelly with the back of his sword.
‘It looks like they add a few hundred new eggs to their reserve every time they have the ceremony,’ Sylva said. ‘I wonder why we’re only encountering these goblins this year. They must have been secretly building an army.’
She removed her falx and speared the nearest egg through the middle. A gush of opaque fluid spilled from within, and the green ovum deflated to a withered sack. The stench was foul, like a putrid sewer.
‘Thanks for that,’ Othello said, giving the empty egg-sack a wide berth. ‘Now we have to wait here with that stink in the air.’
Sylva rolled her eyes.
‘Well how was I supposed to—’
A crossbow bolt thudded through Fletcher’s shoulder. He stared at it, the blue fletching protruding from him like some strange new appendage. Another took him in the thigh, and he fell to one knee. There was no pain, only the dull numbness of shock as his arm hung uselessly by his side. The khopesh slipped from his fingers.
Sylva roared and fired a bolt of lightning at the platform above, where the attack had come from. It shattered against the roof of the pyramid in a puff of dust and masonry.
Othello was already on Lysander’s back, the Griffin powering them upwards with berserk thrusts from his wings. The echo of fading footsteps told Fletcher it was useless. The assassin was already gone.
‘No, no no,’ Sylva whispered, catching Fletcher in her arms as he fell back.
The pain came then. It felt as if he were being torn apart. The downward trajectory of the first bolt had taken it through his back and into his upper chest. It hurt to breathe.
‘Take it out,’ Fletcher croaked. He could taste metallic blood on his lips and knew he had been lung-shot. ‘We need to heal …’
He gasped as Sylva snapped the steel tip from the shaft between her fingers and drew out the bolt in one fluid motion. Then he choked as his lung began to fill with blood.
The procedure was repeated on his thigh, with Sylva first pushing the shaft further through so she could grip the steel tip.
As Fletcher gurgled, Sylva etched the healing spell in the air, the white threads of light flickering around his wounds. Ignatius joined the effort, his tongue lapping at the wound as he desperately tried to staunch the flow of blood.
It was slow, too slow, and Fletcher’s thigh was gushing crimson into the earth. His artery had been hit.
He watched it all in grim silence. He didn’t want to die in this fetid pit, with the whole world watching. He would be a failure, and a symbol of the disunity of Hominum. A martyr to everything he hated.
Then he remembered. Electra’s potions, strapped to his chest.
Unable to speak, Fletcher tugged one from its slot and popped the cork with a flick of his thumb. He gulped it down, the taste as metallic as the blood that stained his teeth. For a moment he felt nothing but the life draining from his body. Then …
‘Woah,’ Sylva gasped, her healing spell flickering out of existence.
Fletcher felt a cold sensation rush over him. The pain was gone, almost instantly. He looked at his leg to find no more than a patch of bloodstained skin through the tear in his breeches. His chest was much the same.
Ignatius bounded on to his shoulder, wrapping himself around Fletcher’s neck. Beneath the Salamander’s skin, he could hear the hammering of the terrified demon’s heart.
‘Easy there, buddy,’ Fletcher murmured. ‘I’m still here.’
‘I thought I’d lost you,’ Sylva whispered, pressing her forehead to his, gasping with emotion. For the briefest of moments, so quickly that Fletcher couldn’t even be sure it had happened, he felt her soft lips brush his own.
Then Othello landed beside them with a thud, and they were wrapped in a bear hug.
‘That was too close,’ Othello sobbed, squeezing them so hard Fletcher thought his ribs might crack. ‘Don’t you ever do that to me again.’